British tourist, 76, drowns while swimming in the sea during a day trip to a Greek island with his wife
- The couple are said to have visited Kalymnos, near the Turkish mainland
- He was taken to a nearby port but was pronounced dead by emergency services
A British tourist has drowned while swimming in the sea during a day trip to a Greek island with his wife, according to local reports.
The 76-year-old man is said to have been visiting Kalymnos, one of Greece’s Dodecanese islands in the Mediterranean Sea, close to the Turkish mainland, when the incident occurred on Tuesday.
According to local news site Palmoskalymnou, the man and his wife had traveled by boat from the nearby island of Kos, south of Kalymnos, and were swimming in the ocean near the island’s port of Vathi.
It was not immediately clear what caused the man to drown.
He was pulled from the water and taken by boat to Vathi harbour, but despite coastguards and other emergency services coming to the man’s aid, he was pronounced dead.
A British tourist has drowned while swimming in the sea during a day trip with his wife to a Greek island. Pictured: a view of the island of Kalymnos (archive photo) where the incident took place
The 76-year-old man is said to have visited Kalymnos, one of the Greek Dodecanese islands in the Mediterranean Sea, close to the Turkish mainland, on Tuesday.
The man’s identity has not been released or reported in the Greek media.
The Kalymnos Port Authority has launched an investigation into the incident.
Kalymnos is only about 70 miles from the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Marmaris, where a British pensioner also drowned last month.
The 73-year-old had been on a coastal trip in Mugla province with friends when he jumped into the Mediterranean Sea as temperatures reached 25 degrees.
But when he struggled to get back into the boat, his friends called emergency services, local media reported on April 16.
A team of coastguards, police and divers in two boats pulled him from the water and rushed him to paramedics waiting on the beach.
However, they were unable to save him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
More to follow…